Drowning Erin

by Elizabeth O'Roark

  “The toxins make it extra delicious,” I reply.

  “There’s literally nothing worse you could have ordered,” she says, proceeding to detail all the ways I just made the worst decision in the history of decisions—the fat grams, the omega-6s, the calories.

  Brendan and Rob are oblivious to the exchange as they recount the same adolescent stories they always tell when they get together. They met on the first day of middle school—Brendan, who had yet to undergo his staggering growth spurt, mouthed off to some 18-year-old walking by and was about to get his ass handed to him. Every single kid scattered except for Rob. They’ve been best friends ever since.

  I’m not sure they would ever have become friends at all if it hadn’t happened, because they are very different people: Rob, conservative and pragmatic; Brendan, all about seizing the day. They’ve maintained their friendship in spite of it, but when the conversation turns to Brendan’s new tour company, I begin to question whether they’ll continue to do so.

  “You sure you want to blow all your savings on a business, Brendan?” Rob asks. “A huge percentage of new businesses fold in their first year.”

  “I’m investing in something that will make me happy every day. What else am I going to do with it?”

  “You could sock it away,” Rob counters. There’s a hint of condescension in his tone that sets my teeth on edge. “Every penny you save will have grown exponentially between now and retirement. Worry about what makes you happy after you know you have what you need to survive.”

  Brendan’s eyes darken slightly. As I recall, this isn’t so different from the arguments he had with Will back in the day. I doubt it’s any easier to hear coming from Rob.

  “Look,” he says, “there are guys who want to do the same bland shit every day when they go into work. They’re the same guys too scared to ski black diamonds or surf a decent wave. They like a nice, hummable tune during their 45-minute commute home, but they never jump in the mosh pit. That’s not living. That’s watching life from a distance, like it’s a television show. And to me, that sounds like a death sentence.”

  “My ‘death sentence’,” Rob replies evenly, “might be looking pretty good to you in 30 years.”

  Brendan grins. “I knew I should have left your ass in that ditch behind the school.” Yet another obscure high school reference. A part of me wishes I could see Rob from those days—based on their stories it sounds like he was actually easygoing once upon a time, and that’s an adjective no one would use to describe him now.

  Rob laughs and the tension abates. I’m not sure if I’m relieved or disappointed. I’d be sad for Rob if he lost this friendship—he’s so focused on work that there’s little else outside of it in his life, and Brendan is one of very people he still counts as a friend—but I think it’d make life easier for all of us if it just faded away. Although, to be honest, maybe it’d just make life easier for me.

  Rob turns to Bambi and asks her what she does for a living. I’m guessing it’s not much, but I manage to stifle the urge to roll my eyes. She takes a sip of her cosmo, which I consider to be a drink of girls who’ve just acquired their first fake ID. “I’m a doctor.”

  “A doctor?” I ask, choking on my drink.

  Rob kicks my foot. I guess it’s wrong that I sound so incredulous but…a doctor? Really? Brendan’s smile is so smug right now. He knows I thought she’d be an idiot, and he’s thrilled to prove me wrong.

  “What kind of doctor?” I ask, and Rob kicks my foot again.

  “I’m a doctor of energy medicine.”

  Brendan’s smug, gloating, punchable face dims slightly. Apparently this is news to him too.

  “Fascinating,” I say, catching Brendan’s eye. “I don’t think I’ve heard of that.”

  Brendan glares at me, and I’m about 90 percent certain he’s imagining stabbing me right now. Something giddy bubbles in my chest.

  “Illness is just the result of the loss of our soul parts,” she says. “I commune with beings from other realms, and they guide me to those lost parts.”

  Rob’s foot lands on mine but it’s too late. I can’t stop myself.

  “Ohhhhh,” I say, directing my widest smile at Brendan. “How interesting. I thought you meant you were a real doctor.”

  “I’ve cured things no one with a medical degree would touch.”

  I nod eagerly. “Amazing,” I reply. “Like what?”

  She begins to detail all the cases of cancer she’s sure she’s cured, presumably via the collection of lost soul parts, and I feel a gurgle of semi-hysterical laughter welling up in my throat.

  Rob’s foot is on mine, and his hand clamps down on my thigh. I don’t know what he wants me to do. I’m not trying to laugh.

  “Excuse me,” I murmur, sliding out of my seat and almost running to the bathroom. Laughter explodes from my throat just as I get inside the door. I shoot a quick text to Olivia, letting her know her future sister-in-law can cure cancer. It’s certainly a handy skill to have in the family.

  I reapply my lipstick and resolve to be better behaved when I go out. It’s not her fault she’s an idiot, and the truth is that she’s not the one I have a problem with. It’s Brendan, with his consistent preference for looks over substance, who irks me.

  When I’ve finally collected myself, I push the door open. Standing partly in shadow, his face lit by the neon exit sign, Brendan waits. He looks almost sculptural, chiseled, his hard jaw leading to the perfection of his soft mouth.

  Ugh. Why can’t I even notice him without sounding like I’m narrating porn?

  “That wasn’t very nice, Erin,” he says.

  “I’m no doctor,” I reply, “but I’m guessing it went over her head.”

  “Are you going to be like this every time I have someone over?”

  “I don’t know. Will they all be ‘doctors’ or do you think you’ll branch out a little? Maybe an astrologist? A psychic?”

  He steps into the light. There’s this weird little gleam to his eyes that wasn’t there earlier. A charge. I’m not sure if I’m excited or terrified.

  “No, but I might try to find one who can pull that stick out of your ass.”

  “If that’s your way of suggesting a threesome, I’m gonna pass.”

  That charge grows. His eyes fall, so fast I almost miss it, to my mouth.

  And suddenly I’m remembering another time like this. Where one minute we were bickering, just as we are now, and the next his mouth was on mine and his hands were inside my shirt.

  I’m not scared, I realize. I’m excited.

  I hate, as always, that Brendan is capable of eliciting any feeling from me. Especially that one.

  The night finally ends. We say our goodbyes and are almost to our car when Rob runs into Brad, a colleague of his, in the parking lot. I’m exhausted and in a pissy mood, but I try not to let it show as he approaches. There are certain roles we all play on behalf of our significant others, and this is mine—the pleasant fiancé/wife, who smiles at the correct times and dresses appropriately and is otherwise irrelevant. I’ve known most of these guys for years and I’m guessing not a single one of them knows what I do for a living.

  He hugs me and then punches Rob’s shoulder. “That was a crazy night last week, huh?”

  Rob laughs, but it’s a little forced, and his eyes flicker to me for a moment. “Yeah. Insane.”

  “How late did you guys stay?” Brad asks.

  “Not long,” Rob replies. Under normal circumstances I probably would have tuned this conversation out by now, but there is something about Rob that has me on alert. His posture, his voice—they strive for normalcy but don’t quite achieve it.

  “Seriously? Because I left around 10 and it looked like you were going strong. I just can’t stay out like that anymore.”

  Rob smiles. “The key is to order club soda with lime most of the night so it just looks like you’re drinking.”

  Brad laughs. “Someone ought to clue Christina into that trick,
because she was plastered.”

  Mic drop.

  Christina? He was out with Christina last week?

  I am not, by nature, jealous. But Christina was the cause of the biggest fight we’ve ever had, and given that we almost never fight, that makes it especially memorable. I’ve seen her hit on Rob before, but it was at last year’s holiday party that I finally lost it. I was standing unseen a few feet away when she unbuttoned her shirt and asked if he was ready for a change of scenery. He didn’t pursue it, but the words no and I’m engaged never left his mouth either. Instead he’d laughed and told her he was sure the view was magnificent. We had a major fight over it on the way home that night, and I suspect we may be about to have another right now.

  I walk into the parking lot as fast as is possible in a pencil skirt and heels, my heart drumming fast in my chest.

  “Erin,” Rob says from behind me.

  I round on him. “When?” I demand. “When exactly did this magical night with Christina take place?”

  He groans. “She’s the head of M&A, hon. It’s not like it was a date.”

  “When?”

  “Last week,” he says. “The client thing.”

  My head is spinning. He told me he was going to cut out early that night. I made him braised short ribs and mashed potatoes and I’d actually felt sorry for him when he said he was stuck with clients. “So Christina was the reason,” I hiss, “that I wasted two hours cooking a dinner you didn’t bother to come home for.”

  “Of course she wasn’t!” He doesn’t shout, but his voice is raised, something that rarely happens with Rob. “There were like 10 people there, half of them clients, and there was no way I could extract myself.”

  My laugh is bitter. “Just like there was no way you could tell her you were engaged when she hit on you last winter.”

  He digs his hands through his hair. “She already knows I’m engaged. We’ve gone over this. She says crazy shit that she doesn’t mean when she’s drinking and the best way to handle it is to laugh and move on. I have to work with her. Do you understand how awkward it would be for everyone if I made a big deal of it every time she said something inappropriate?”

  “No. What I understand is that you blew me off last week and instead stayed out until after midnight with a woman we’ve already had one major fight over.”

  “I don’t always get to decide when I’m going out or who it’s with,” he argues. “And I’m very well-compensated for that fact. You have to live with the downside sometimes if you want the upside too.”

  We ride home in silence. I know there’s a point to what he said, but I’m still angry, and it’s so unusual for me to be angry at Rob that neither of us is even sure how to proceed. Olivia thinks the fact that we rarely argue is a bad thing. She says it means we never dive below the surface with each other. Perhaps she’s right, but I’m okay with that. Things under my surface are dark, much darker than Rob—with his storybook childhood and perfect parents—could ever understand. I like the fact that when Rob sees me, he sees the girl I might have been instead of the one I actually am.

  “I don’t want to fight with you,” he says with a sigh as we walk in the house. “We finally have some time to ourselves. Can we please put it behind us?”

  His arms go around me, and I press my face to his chest, though all I can smell is the starch of his shirt. His hands slide from my waist to my ass. “Let’s go to bed.”

  I agree in part because I hate arguing, but mostly because we’ve only had sex once in the past month, which may have as much to do with my foul mood right now as anything else.

  I tell him to give me two minutes and take the world’s fastest shower—the water still isn’t quite hot by the time I’m done. I don’t bother wasting time on lingerie. Rob would barely notice anyhow.

  And then I walk into our bedroom to find the lights off and him on his back, snoring loudly. My disappointment turns to resignation as I climb in beside him. It’s not his fault. I doubt he got more than four hours of sleep last night. The past month isn’t his fault either.

  But as I settle into bed, I’m still thinking about sex, and when I fall asleep I dream about it. That makes sense, under the circumstances.

  What doesn’t make sense is that it’s Brendan I dream about.

  7

  Brendan

  Four Years Earlier

  I’m on the floor fixing a broken bike chain during my second week at work when Erin walks up. I expend a lot of effort avoiding her, so it’s annoying when she seeks me out. For just a moment, all I see are bare legs, long and starting to tan though summer hasn’t quite begun. She’s got her hair down, wearing no makeup. There’s something about that bare, full mouth that I’d like to look at one moment longer, and it bothers me that I’d want to.

  “Yeah?” I ask irritably.

  “You don’t have to be a dick,” she says. “You don’t even know what I’m going to ask.”

  “No, but I’m anticipating that it’ll piss me off,” I reply.

  Hurt flashes over her face for a moment, and I feel bad about it, but not for long. It’s best that we get clear right now that I don’t want her around. Her presence is a constant irritant, like a pebble in my shoe or an itch I can’t reach.

  She huffs in irritation and then continues in her professional voice. “AJ called in sick. Can you lead an extra tour this afternoon?”

  “Sure,” I say, returning my gaze to the bike as I answer.

  “There. Was that so hard?” she asks.

  Yeah. It sort of was. That one tiny interaction is enough to ruin my afternoon.

  “Are you being nice to Erin?” Olivia asks.

  “Of course,” I say, though it isn’t true. I’ve been surly more than anything else.

  “You’re leaving Erin alone, right?” Will asks when he takes the phone.

  “Of course,” I say again, and this time it’s absolutely true. “You have nothing to worry about. She annoys the living shit out of me.”

  “Erin?” he says, as if my words are too impossible to be believed. “Why?”

  “She just does.” I can’t put my finger on precisely what I find annoying. It’s just everything. Each day when I walk into the tour office and find her there, I feel my irritation ticking upward like a thermometer on a hot day.

  “Name one thing she does that’s annoying. I dare you.”

  “The baking,” I reply. “Every day she’s bringing some homemade shit into the office.”

  “Yeah, wow, she sounds terrible,” Will says.

  “And she’s so fucking cheerful. Morning to night with that big smile on her face.”

  Will is laughing now. “What a nightmare. I don’t know how you stand it.”

  I’m not sure either. But every day she bothers me more.

  8

  Erin

  Present

  Wednesday, Rob’s last full day in the States, comes too fast. It really isn’t a big deal that he’s leaving, so it’s hard for me to explain the sense of impending doom I feel whenever I think about it. Maybe it’s just that his trip has been extended at the last minute—instead of a week he’ll be gone nearly a month. I’m not even sure he’d have remembered to tell me if I hadn’t overheard him discussing it with Brendan.

  He calls just after lunch. This in and of itself is unusual, because Rob never calls while I’m at work. But it’s his voice I find most alarming—flat, without inflection or apology, telling me he thinks he might work late.

  “Rob,” I sigh. “This is the last time I’m seeing you for a month. I’d think that just this once you could tell your boss no.”

  “Yes, and I’d think that just once you might be able to tell your brother no, but apparently you decided to give him all of your money instead,” he shoots back.

  Oh. Fuck. “Did Sean call you?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” Rob says with a bitter laugh. “He wanted to thank me for being so ‘cool’ about it.”

  There’s nothing I can say to defend
myself. I should have discussed it with him. There’s only one reason I didn’t: because I knew I’d pay Sean’s tuition whether Rob agreed or not.

  “I meant to tell you,” I say weakly.

  “Don’t you think you should have discussed it with me first? I thought we were a team, Erin.”

  “Sean was going to work at a bar,” I reply. “It would have been a disaster.”

  “That’s not the point,” he snaps. “We’re supposed to discuss these things. We’re engaged. Or have you forgotten?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means we’ve been engaged for 18 months, and you haven’t moved one millimeter toward picking a date or anything else,” he says. “You keep claiming you’re too busy, but when you do something like this, I have to wonder if that’s all it is.”

  He doesn’t get home until after eight. Dinner is cold. I’m mad, but my grounds for anger are so minimal compared to his that I push it down deep.

  “There’s food on the stove if you’re hungry,” I say quietly. “You’ll just need to heat it up.”

  “I met Brendan and got something at the bar,” he replies, throwing his jacket on the chair.

  I close my eyes to keep from rolling them. Being late is bad enough. Being late because he was hanging out with Brendan, however, is really doubling down.

  “Let me guess,” I say. “He told you to dump me for the hundredth time?”

  “No.” Rob sighs. “He said I should get clear on what bothers me before we have a conversation because you’re a fixer, and you can’t fix this until you know what the problem is.”

  “Has the world stopped spinning on its axis? Brendan actually paid me a compliment?”

  Rob laughs. “Not exactly. He said he hates fixers. But anyway, he meant well.”

  “Any other sage advice from the guy who’s never had a relationship?”

  “Yeah, he said I should go home and get laid.”